Also most indie games require more brainpower than what Apple Arcade offers. Apple wouldn't know a complex game if a pile of discs with them fell on their heads.
The "lock-in" and the lack of ownership/copyright extension for media provided by their service is absolutely a problem, but it's not "servitude". There's a couple of other members of FAANG where the relationship with users is much more like servitude.
Forever seems like a stretch. When Switch is succeeded, how long before Nintendo shuts the Switch shop down? You can't legally move downloaded games between consoles.
This was a big issue with WiiWare when Nintendo shut down the Wii Shop. People could keep what they had downloaded, but once the Shop shut down, you couldn't redownload anything.
Download is only one way to buy Switch games, and at least I'll still be able to use one console - compared to zero as soon as I stop paying my feudal obligations to Apple.
And almost every game available on cartridge has some kind of patch only downloadable from the store. Some don't even have all their data on the cartridge and need a download to function at all...
I will maintain servitude to Apple for the rest of my life because of iMessage: if I leave they can subtly “break” my access to messaging with people I care about (and have done so.)
> because of iMessage: if I leave they can subtly “break” my access to messaging with people I care about (and have done so.)
Even if you made sure to unregister your phone number and email addresses from iMessage first? You can do this while still using an iPhone to validate that it's worked before you give it up.
> Even if you made sure to unregister your phone number and email addresses from iMessage first? You can do this while still using an iPhone to validate that it's worked before you give it up.
You are right, of course. And you can also do it afterwards if you forgot. There is no nefarious plan to void your messages when you change phone.
The economics of game passes are like this with nearly all of them. The XBox game pass has several games (on both PC and XBox) where their price is multiples of the monthly price.
You do—so if I like a game enough, I'll pick it up elsewhere, too. But digital games as a whole get harder to play over time. I've moved my DSi games to my 3DS, and I've got a Wii with a whole bunch of titles.
Consider the total hours games like BotW offer and divide that into the price. That might alter your feelings that game prices are too high. I know it did for me.
You say that like games aren't already kind of absurdly cheap for how much work goes into them. People used to pay $60 of 1980s money for, frankly, pretty shit[0] NES games. That's ~$150 worth of money today. $30 games are downright cheap and I'm continually impressed by how entitled gamers can be when they complain about modern game prices. People pay $30 for a decent meal at a restaurant FFS.
Which isn't to say that you should by a switch. If you don't think it's a good value then obviously you shouldn't. I'm just saying that not buying it because 'the games are too expensive' seems like a pretty unjustified complaint to me.
[0] Not all of them were shit of course, but the catalogue is 90% shit and people did buy a lot of shit games.
Well, consider that you could buy any kind of game first hand for $60, then after finishing it, you could be able to sell if and get some money back.
Today you pay $30 (for some games, but a lot are still $60, $80, etc.) Plus the DLC, credits, extensions, registration to an account no ability to sell it or buy second hand.
Game industry got pretty bad, I've enjoyed it in the past, and I have the ability to just move on and ignore anything game related, what I am upset about is that today's kids are squeezed and coerced in order to play anything, and that is why I wish we had governments trying to put a stop to the current gaming companies greed
$60 was also worth quite a bit more in the heyday of GameStop et al.
What you characterize as "greed" is more reflective of general consumer desires (physical media is pretty dead, and I say this having a paper library of around 500 books) and that games are ever-more-expensive to make.
For the preposterous number of person-hours that go into an AAA title, $100 isn't unrealistic. But there's price anchoring dating back to the nineties now, and that as much as anything is why games upsell the way they do. (The "complete edition" prices are probably more representative of what a sustainable price for a player really is.)
Or we can do microtransactions until our souls bleed and go back to single-use codes in the game case. That's a thing too.
> What you characterize as "greed" is more reflective of general consumer desires
While it is hilarious that you imply that vendor lockin, half finished games, arbitrary difficulty curves meant to stimulate mtx and a lack of ownership is a "general consumer desire" I think it is more reasonable to say that the consumer has no choice. They (or we) clearly still desire to buy videogames, so folks end up buying what is essentially trash.
The dichotomy isn't "buy AAA games" or "don't buy games". It's never been a better time to buy indie games, many of which these days are super polished and rewarding experiences. But the thing is? If you want an AAA game with AAA affordances, the cost of production is going to have to come from somewhere. And--well--it certainly seems like a lot of the market wants those games and those affordances, so yeah, if the player is prioritizing AAA games, then yes, they're expensive, and yes, they're going to get more expensive, and you can either pay it at the front door or once you're inside.
You pay your money and you take your choice. I agree that it's silly, and that's why I don't buy those games. I buy and play a lot of games, but it's been at least five years since I bought a game (that didn't show up from Humble Choice or whatever and is languishing in my game keys spreadsheet) from Activision, EA, or Ubisoft.
I have gotten more enjoyment out of Starsector[0], a game that isn't even on Steam yet, than I've ever gotten out of any AAA game I've ever played. It cost me $15. (I have since bought it repeatedly for friends.)
For the amount of person hours having a game sold for $100 is a bit of nonsense, they sell in million worldwide and the people working on it are laid off as soon the production is over, so it's just shared holders and CEO pocketing blood, are we really still thinking that people doing the work are getting anything off the production
A lot more than just inflation changed since the '80s. Off the top of my head: massively larger market, better tooling, better hardware, better distribution networks.
Gaming companies aren't entitled to my money. They're allowed to offer games for the prices they want, and the market is allowed to buy them or not.
That may be true, but the switch exists in a market where games are extremely cheap. High quality free to play games, cheap indie games I play for weeks, steam sales, huge numbers of games given away by Epic Games, "free" games with prime gaming, and the insane value of Game Pass. It feels like every time I spend money on a game its free on the Epic Store or "free" on Game Pass within a few months. There's never been a cheaper time to be a PC gamer... assuming you already have a PC.
I still play $60 for games because it's not a big deal for me but it's weird when I already have so much entertainment available for almost nothing. Playnite says I have 1050 games available to play, about 50 are duplicates and about 350 are from Game pass. I've apparently spent less than $600 on steam and much less than that on all other stores. Seems like the market value of the average game is about $1. (Hands waving furiously)
If games are so expensive to make and sell so cheap, how come are the game companies getting bigger and making record profits year after year? Not that the median game developer seems to be much better off for it, though.
Besides, many of those $10 games that are $30 on the Switch are made by smaller teams or even solo creators. Just because some video game properties have grown into giant franchises with multimedia companies pouring tens and hundreds of millions dollars and armies of people into them, that doesn't mean the majority of video game titles around are like that.
Come to think of it, in the light of the countless recent stories of overwork and abuse in the games industry and the scandalous quality issues plaguing high-profile releases in recent years, I'm not even sure if we should be incentivizing games having a lot of work go into them.
How come is it entitlement to not buy things that cost more than you think they are worth, anyway? Expensive things don't become cheap just because they're cheaper than four decades ago nor because they happen to be created and marketed by large corporations with lots of employees.
> If games are so expensive to make and sell so cheap, how come are the game companies getting bigger and making record profits year after year? Not that the median game developer seems to be much better off for it, though.
That's a fair point. My first guess is lootboxes and microtransactions being used to make up the difference, as well as underpaying employees. For big studios it is common to lay off developers immediately after a big release.
Regardless, I don't think that same logic applies to smaller studios.
> How come is it entitlement to not buy things that cost more than you think they are worth, anyway?
That isn't what I was saying, though I admit I didn't make it very clear. If you don't want to buy something because the cost isn't worth it to you, that's perfectly fair. What I am annoyed by and think is entitled is any kind of objective-sounding judgement that 'games are too expensive'.
there are some major differences that mean inflation isn't the best indication for price
the biggest is market size. in 1980, there were very few people buying games compared to today.
also, for non-aaa games, the difficulty of making a game has in many ways gone down significantly. NES era games were at the absolute limit of hardware capabilities, and required a ton of wizardry to fit within size constraints. now graphics expectations are higher, but modern computers are so much more powerful that you can afford a lot more sloppiness.
> I'm continually impressed by how entitled gamers can be when they complain about modern game prices
> I'm just saying that not buying it because 'the games are too expensive' seems like a pretty unjustified complaint to me.
That's because on this topic you are quick on making judgements on people and don't (want to?) realize their reasons for not buying a switch can be valid and these reasons are not attack or counter arguments to the reasons for why you would buy switch games.
I am not an entitled gamer.
edit: and FWIW I was checking the switch page for Disco Elysium and I see that the price tag is the same as Gog's (39.99) but now I don't care anymore about discussing this topic here and now. Nintendotax gone ? Just checked Life is stange:true colours, same price tags as steam.
I guess the difference I'm trying to make is between "it personally isn't worth that to me", which is of course entirely valid, and a more objective-sounding statement of "games cost too much", which I think any objective analysis would say is ridiculous.
> Game prices on the switch is why I haven't gave in to the temptation yet.
Not:
> Game prices on the switch is why it's not worth gave in to the temptation yet.
> I guess the difference I'm trying to make is between "it personally isn't worth that to me", which is of course entirely valid, and a more objective-sounding statement of "games cost too much", which I think any objective analysis would say is ridiculous.
No, you built a straw man argument.
Do I go around asking for a refund because The Witness has been given for free and I paid for it in full upon release ? That would be entitlement. Not buying a switch because switch games are too expensive for me is not being entitled. I also think not buying a switch because I may think switch games are too expensive is not being entitled.
> [..] , which I think any objective analysis would say is ridiculous.
Yeah, way to go. First you suggest in a reply to me that people who think like you think I do are entitled and then you state your opinion is objective and then throw a blanket statement about something no one said and suggest this position is objectively ridiculous.
